Three European Countries
Music Tour 2024
Day
1- Travel to Germany
The music tour staff and students arrived bright and early at The Winston Churchill School on
Monday 15th July to pack up the coach with over 100 instruments, all
the suitcases and ourselves. We left at 7:30am and arrived in Dover in plenty
of time to pick up our drivers for the week, Lynn and Patsy, who then drove us
onto the ferry. After a smooth ferry crossing, we arrived in Calais and not
long after, and made our first stop at a Belgium service station. The students
were horrified to discover that they had to pay to use the toilets but were
warned that it would be like that everywhere!
We had a final stop in The Netherlands
before arriving in Germany at our hostel, DJH Nideggen at around 8:45pm. We
were greeted by the lovely Veronika who sent us straight for a dinner of
‘Vegetarian potato soup,’ which was lovely and healthy after a day of eating
rubbish on the coaches!
We had a quick look around the hostel and
had a safety briefing, and then it was off to bed around 10pm to get a good
rest for the first day of sightseeing and concerts!
Day
2- Valkenburg Castle Ruins & Velvet Caves and Concert 1: The Netherlands
We met in the hostel canteen for a
continental breakfast at 7:30am on our first proper day of tour, sleepy but
excited for the day to come. We made sandwiches for our packed lunches and then
loaded our hired chairs onto the coach and headed for our first excursion.
After getting a little lost and then
walking the rest of the way, we finally began our tour of the caves. Splitting
into smaller groups, we had a tour of the Velvet Caves below Valkenburg Castle
ruins from very knowledgeable local tour guides. We then had our lunch in the
grounds of the castle ruins, from where we could admire the view of both the
town and the castle.
We then walked into Valkenburg town to meet
our coach drivers and unload the chairs and instruments from the coach to walk
it all to the town square that we were playing in. However, the weather had
other ideas and it rain as the first
group of students arrived in the square with their chairs. We took cover and
waited for the rain to stop, to no avail. Lieke’s Grandparents and Great Aunt
had come all the way from Antwerp to watch us, so we were determined to find
somewhere to play! Mr Drake asked in some local churches, Mrs Antony scouted
about for somewhere sheltered, and Isabella proved herself to be far better
than Google Translate by speaking to our Dutch contact (in Dutch!) on the
phone, but we had no luck. We made the decision to return to the hostel and
play a reduced concert there. We loaded back onto the coaches again, much
wetter now and made a quick but essential stop at Aldi to buy snacks, then
headed to the hostel. Luckily, Lieke’s family met us back at the hostel and we
also met some local residents who were keen for a concert too, so we played to
a small, but enthusiastic audience.
We had pasta bolognaise for dinner and then made the most of the dry weather by going outside to the hostel’s fantasitc sports facilities to play various games and to watch the sunset from the roof terrace. However, the heavens opened again, and we retreated inside to play boardgames. At 10pm it was off to bed to sleep and be ready for two concerts the next day.
Day 3- Concert 1: Aachen, Concert 2: Drielandenpunt (The Three Countries Point)
On Wednesday we slotted into our routines
of having breakfast and making our packed lunches and got on the coaches once
again. This time we headed to Aachen to play in the stunning Elisenbrunnen
Pavilion. As usual, we had to empty the coach and carry 88 chairs and over 100
instruments about 200 metres from where we could park, which gathered a lot of
interest from the locals! Miss Shlackman, Mr Mealin and Steffan drummed up even
more interest by carrying 2 huge timpani drums between them! The Elisenbrunnen Pavilion
is a beautiful dome shaped portico with white pillars and two water fountains,
the waters of which are supposed to contain healing properties, but is not
drinkable anymore. Locals and tourists appeared before we had even started
playing so we had quite a crowd. Within 15 minutes of playing, we had over 100
people standing around, dancing, singing along and enjoying our music. Athidh
made his European debut by conducting his original orchestral composition ‘Axen.’
Abi, Sienna, Liv, Emilia and Evangeline all sang with Session Band to huge
applause and enjoyment too. Orchestra, Big Band and Brass and Sax Group all
performed fantastically as well. We had so many comments from the locals and
tourists who thought the students were incredibly talented and one man said to
Miss Fletcher, ‘as long as young people keep playing like this, all will be
well with the world’ and another lady asked Mrs Antony ‘how do you make the
children play like that?!’ to which I said, ‘we don’t have to make them. They
love playing their instruments and want to perform well together, which makes
our jobs so much easier and enjoyable!’
We then packed away and loaded everything
back onto the coach to drive to our next concert venue, Drielandenpunt. When we
arrived, Mrs Antony went to look for the stage and was met with lots of
shrugging until finally meeting the stage manager. Thankfully, they already had
chairs there for us so that was one less thing to unload and hike up to the
stage. The stage was a bit of a squeeze, so we had to spread ourselves around
the tables and chairs that tourists were eating at, who were quite excited by
it all. Not an easy set up as it was very hot, tight squeeze, but we still
managed to play to lots of people, some of whom were our coach drivers who even
enjoyed dancing with Miss Fletcher. Orchestra and Big Band started off with a
few numbers, then moved onto Brass and Sax Group and Session Band whilst
students not involved in those groups were able to get a much-needed ice cream
and dance along to the bands playing. Mr Major and his tour group ‘The
Majorettes’ even made up a dance routine. The orchestra then reassembled to
perform a few final songs, including Baba Yetu which was greatly
received by the audience. We had lots more positive comments from the
audience whilst we packed away and loaded the coaches. We then had a big group
photo at the exact point where Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands meet
(Drielandenspunt) and got back onto the coaches to return to the hostel.
After a dinner of chicken curry, we headed
up to the sports area again to play more football and the most ridiculously
competitive game of frisbee to ever be played! Some of us headed up to the roof
for a decent view of the sunset without getting rained on, played more board
games and then bed at 10pm, with most students being incredibly excited for the
theme park the next day!
Day
4- Walibi Belgium
We had another early start, to have
breakfast and make lunch and get onto the coach as soon as possible to get to
Walbi to make the most of the time there. We got to Walibi around 11am and
after picking a meeting point, students went off in groups of 4 or more to ride
the roller coasters. Mrs Antony spent the day with Ava, Matilda and Blossom,
who went on the most roller coasters of all! Mr Drake stayed at the meeting
point and managed to go on several small rides and beat everyone at the laser
game. Mr Mealin went with a group of Y9 and 10 boys to ride the biggest
coasters they could find, whilst Mr Tough and Harry went to eat the most
enormous plate of ribs they could find! Miss Fletcher and Miss Shlackman
wandered around watching students on rides and going on a few themselves and Mr
Major deafened Mr Elliott with his screaming on a fairly small roller coaster. We
all met for lunch at the meeting point and continued going on roller coasters,
rides, games and 4D cinemas until it was time to meet again. We all spent too
much money in the gift shop and then got back on the coach to the hostel.
We had a pork and potato bake for dinner
then played some more sports outside. Some of us had a tour of the beehives
kept on the roof by Veronika and bought some delicious honey made by her bees.
We then had one final trip to the roof to watch the sunset and went down to our
meeting room for a Mr Major disco/karaoke. We finished off our final night with
the whole tour group singing along to ‘Sweet Caroline’.
Day
5- Travel home
We had our final breakfast and made our lunches for the final time in the canteen then got to packing and checking rooms. The Y11s then had a group photo with the staff outside of the hostel to remind them of their last ever Winston music tour. We got onto the coach an hour earlier than planned. Sadly, this extra hour did not help us as there was so much traffic and delays at Calais that we had to skip our visit to the Belgium Chocolate Factory and get a later ferry. Thankfully, we had Lynn the coach driver and her expertise to guide us and suggest route changes. She also kept coach 1 entertained with riddles, games and a sing along. Whilst on the ferry, the Y11s gave cards and gifts to the staff to thank us for their final tour and for all of the great times and opportunities they have had at Winston. It was a very emotional ferry ride, and we were all sad and exhausted as we got on the coach for the final time. Once back at Winston, the students were instrumental at unloading the luggage and instruments off the coach despite the late hour and their parents desperately wanting to hug them! What a fantastic week we all had!
Thank
You:
Thank you to all the students for being so helpful, fun, mature, organised, hilarious, talented, patient and understanding on music tour. You are all an absolute credit to us, the school and your parents and we are very proud of you all. We are already planning and getting excited for next year's tour! Y11s, we will miss you so much, but thank you for all of your help on tour and throughout your time at Winston.
hank you to Mr Drake, Miss Shlackman, Mr Elliott, Mr Mealin, Mr Major, Miss Fletcher and Mr Tough for being the best team. Everyone slotted into roles so easily and made lasting memories for our students by being supportive and enthusiastic all week. An extra thank you to Mr Drake for arranging and organising all of our music, not just for tour, but for the whole school year and every school year!
Thank you to Lynn and Patsy for being a part of our team for the week and being just fantastic coach drivers. Their knowledge and experience made the week run so much smoother and their sense of humor kept us going and entertained on long journeys. We hope to have you back next year!
-Mrs Antony (Trip Leader)
Assistant Director of Music
